Latest Lessons

It has become a huge part of my playing style, and I’m always looking for new and different ways to incorporate sweep picking into musical ideas I come up with. Last month, I detailed the basic mechanics of the technique, and now I’d like to further demonstrate its proper execution.

In this lesson, I’m going to show you how to expand your sweep picking by adding slides to create a chaotic, whipping sound. I’m going to show you two different patterns and then combine them together to create longer runs all the way down the neck. Let’s jump right into our first example in the key of D minor.

Because my influences are the greats of blues-rock guitar—Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc.—I wanted to be able to stick to the same tonality but adapt it to the heavier, more aggressive style of music I tend to lean toward; certainly in the rock genre, anyway.

Van Halen’s impact on Dimebag’s playing is unmistakable. The “vibe” of early Van Halen is by far the most recognizable influence in Dimebag’s playing. From the grooving rhythms played like leads of their own, to the tone, to the phrasing in his lead playing, Dimebag took the inspiration of Edward Van Halen and forged his own identity.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave you a short, 30-minute guitar workout designed for guitarists whose practice time is limited. The positive response I received prompted me to create an additional lesson, which, in combination with my original workout, will give you a good hour of intensive practice.

In my quest to raise my guitar-playing game to the highest level, I find it essential to devise practice techniques that will push my pick- and fret-hand abilities as far as possible. A great way to go about this is to combine the focus on these technical issues with the creative endeavor of writing original riffs and patterns that will hopefully spark new song ideas.

As I will demonstrate, this modal relationship between the two scales is very convenient and useful for crafting sweet-sounding melodies over a C-to-D or D-to-C chord vamp. But first, some more helpful insight into D Mixolydian hexatonic.

He has the innate ability to move smoothly from one great, imminently melodic phrase into the next while also both riding the groove and pushing it along. When improvising, Clapton will subtly mix up the rhythms of his lines to create clearly defined syncopations that serve to strengthen the melodic quality of his solos.

The mind of a songwriter is often wired differently than that of a guitarist. Though the two cross paths often, it’s rare to see a pro-level guitar player (particularly a lead guitarist) and a successful songwriter embodying the same human being. Some exceptions might include Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Eric Clapton and Brad Paisley. But usually it takes two.